


How to be Mats Hummels

by ascience



Category: Football RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: Body Swap, Fluff and Crack, German National Team, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-03
Updated: 2014-10-27
Packaged: 2018-02-19 18:34:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2398613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ascience/pseuds/ascience
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mats and Marco swap bodies and that's just where the complications <em>start</em>.</p><p>Or:<br/>"from mat$ humm€l$: what the fuck did you do?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [《How to be Mats Hummels》中文翻译](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6366814) by [kts210 (redback210)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redback210/pseuds/kts210)



> I'm trying to get my groove back after having a minor case of writer's block so, yeah.  
> This fic will probably be somewhat confusing, be warned. Yay for multiple chapters though!
> 
> I'm on [twitter](https://twitter.com/anexactscience), by the way.

The first couple of seconds after Mats wakes up, nothing feels out of the ordinary.  
He stretches like he does every morning, eyes still shut tightly, and figures that the tingling feeling in his muscles is the hang-over from last night’s party.

Sleepily, Mats sneaks his hands down his boxer shorts and he’s already semi-hard even though he can’t remember any dream that could have caused it. Still, his thoughts instantly flicker to images of team showers. After the victory, he figures he deserves it so today he doesn’t stop himself from replaying the memories of water running down Benni’s sweaty skin and the way Benni throws his head back under the spurts of water and -

He manages a couple of strokes and it feels good but... _different_ so Mats cracks open his eyes and looks down on himself.

The first thing he sees is the tattoo on his forearm.

For an irrational moment, Mats thinks ‘Marco isn’t even my name,’ then ‘Did I get Marco’s name and date of birth tattooed last night?’ and finally ‘ _How_ fucking drunk was I?’

Now, Mats is no stranger to poor choices after celebrating a win but he scrambles to sit up on the bed and looks around to find himself in Marco’s bed _in Marco’s room in Marco’s house_ with no recollection of ever getting here and that’s when the first alarm bells start ringing.

Marco is nowhere to be seen either so Mats staggers out of bed and finds himself facing a life-size poster of Marco hanging on the wall.

Mats frowns and writes a mental note to make fun of Marco for that when the poster frowns back at him.

It’s not a poster, it’s a _mirror_.

Tentatively, Mats raises his hand and Marco in the reflection does the same.

 _Shit,_ Mats thinks and pats down his chest, his arms, touches his face and rubs his hand across his tattoo, no, _Marco_ ’s tattoo.

It feels real but it also doesn’t because Mats feels like he’s taller than his own body but even just trying to make sense of it makes his stomach turn.

Mats starts hyperventilating and he can feel a panic attack coming up because _what the everloving fuck?_  
But he clenches his fists, squeezes hit eyes shut, swallows dryly, slowly counts to ten and figures that it could have been worse – he could have been turned into a dog or Kevin freaking Großkreutz so maybe Mats is even a little bit grateful that he’s stuck in Marco’s body.  
“Stuck in Marco’s body”, ha. Mats is almost sad that no one is here to hear all the glorious jokes he could make about that.

Since nobody’s ever told him how to act in case he wakes up in the body of his best friend, Mats tries to think of possible measures to take and comes up with the following two:

He could get back into bed, finish jerking off and then sleep some more and hope this will all have been a bad dream – but he would neither be able to get it up (no matter how deep he digs into his Benni-is-hot-just-by-existing wank folder) nor sleep. Nor ever look Marco in the eyes again.

He could also try to figure out what unearthly curse made him turn into Marco Reus, of all people, which seems like the more sensible plan.

Unfortunately that’s also the option that requires clothes. Mats sighs, looks at himself in the mirror again and shrugs.

It’s scary to see Marco do the motions but to be 100% honest, now that Mats has accepted his temporary fate, it’s really intriguing to look at and touch Marco’s abs in a totally platonic way. He doesn’t get to do that often without someone looking at them weird.

Mats can’t wear the clothes Marco wore yesterday because they stink of smoke and beer so he pulls a random shirt and pants out of the wardrobe and gets dressed. Coordinating a new body isn’t impossible, mostly not even hard but sometimes Mats feels like he’s missing a couple of centimetres and he misjudges his proportions.

Somewhere in the room, a phone rings and Mats reaches into his pockets to get it out but it’s obviously not there, just like his own body.

He does, however, find Marco’s phone under the bed and unlocks it to find seven missed calls and five texts from his own number.

Slowly, it dawns on Mats that maybe he didn’t just wake up in Marco’s body but they might have in fact _swapped_ and Marco might be in Mats’ body with Mats’ phone.

Damn, this is going to be complicated.

from mat$ humm€l$: _what the fuck did you do?_

from mat$ humm€l$: _mats, what did you do??????????????????_

from mat$ humm€l$: _mats frank oliver elijah hummels, answer your phone_

from mat$ humm€l$: _i’m driving to your freaking house_

from mat$ humm€l$: _*to /MY/ freaking house fuck you_

Mats sucks in his breath. When Marco uses made-up middle names, he is really serious, but it’s not like Mats knows how this happened.  
Maybe it’s some sort of karma payback for the three... five... seventeen times _at most_ he had been a dick in his past life.

Mats raises his hand to run his fingers through his hair but there’s only Marco’s wanna-be Mohawk to hold onto. Life’s a bitch.

Just before Mats can push the button to call back, the door bell rings. For a second, he panics and hopes he can convincingly act as Marco before he peeks out of the window and sees –

Himself.

It’s less surreal than Mats would have expected it to be, mostly it’s. Uh. Hot. Not to sound conceited.

Out on the front lawn, Marco spots Mats looking through the window and gestures at him with a ‘fuck you and hurry up’ expression on his face.  
Mats never knew that his own face could look so pissed off.

He hurries to let Marco in – not without grabbing a toast to eat in the kitchen on his way – and when he opens the door, Marco squeezes past him into the house without a word.

They face each other or, well, themselves and Mats thinks that if this is the last thing he sees before he dies, he could probably die happy, if somewhat unsatisfied that he never got to make out with himself.

“Why are you wearing a hat?” Mats asks unhelpfully, pointing at the yellow beanie on Marco’s head and is surprised by his own voice. “Wow,” he says slowly, “I sound like you. I mean, I look like you. You look like me.”

Marco rolls his eyes to Chile and back. “Congratulations, babe. I never knew you could be so quick.” He takes a deep breath to collect himself and rubs his eyes. “Mats, what did you do?”

It sounds like Marco is a dad talking to his son who managed to make the toaster explode and blames it on the cat.

Mats throws up his hands and tries not to get distracted by the tattoos on his new skin. “Why is it always me? How about _I_ ask _you_ what you’ve done to make us freaking swap bodies?”

Marco raises an eyebrow and Mats relents. “Okay, okay, if anybody of us was responsible for this, it would have been me, I give you that. But I didn’t do anything. Cross my heart and hope to die! I swear on the World Cup.”

Marco eyes him with a taxing look and it looks like he’s about to disagree but then he just nods.

“I need something to drink.” he says, still incredulously staring at Mats, staring at his own body in front of himself.

“It’s your house.” Mats offers and five minutes later they’re both sitting at the kitchen table with a bottle of beer in front of them, despite the fact that they should still be hung-over from the celebrations last night.

This creepy body magic probably overrode the alcohol their system and maybe there is an upside to this whole thing, you know, except getting to stare at yourself.

“Stop staring at me. I mean, stop staring at yourself,” Marco says and groans, “this is so fucked up.”

Mats tries to kick Marco under the table but he aims wrong and his legs are too short now so he just ends up hurting his knee.

“Fuck, why are you so short?”

Marco sticks out his tongue. “I’m not short. I’m just shorter than you. And I already bumped into thousands of things because I can’t handle your height so don’t complain. We’re both in this together. And unless you want to spend the rest of your life as me,” – Mats cringes because no, thanks – “although that should be a treat for you, we need to figure out how to reverse this. Is there anything you remember about yesterday that makes you think... magic or whatever?”

Mats nods slowly. “Yeah, now that you mention it, there was this old lady with warts and I didn’t help her across the street and then she said, ‘Dishonour on you, your family and your cow!’ and then she clicked her red heels and, bam!, I was in your body!’

“What? Really?” Marco actually asks and Mats is close to facepalming.

“No! Of course fucking not! All I remember is us going for a drink yesterday, celebrating your goals and then I woke up and wanted to jerk off but I couldn’t get hard after seeing your dumb tattoos.”

“You had your hand on my dick?”

“Technically, I had _your_ hand on _your_ dick so that probably doesn’t even count as gay. Not that I’d mind.”

Marco looks at Mats like he doesn’t even know what to say anymore and takes another swig from his bottle.

“So what are we going to do? Should we – should we tell anybody?” Mats asks and the moment he says it, he knows that it’d be a dumb thing to do.

“They’d either think it’s a prank or that we’re mad! It might get us banned from playing and the internationals are coming up! We’ve got to figure out how to swap back ourselves. Figure out whether the others know what happened yesterday.”

Mats leans back in his chair and crosses his arms. “And until then?”

“We’re going to act as each other? How hard can that be?”

Mats looks at himself across the table and while it’s his face, of course, there’s also something undeniably Marco in the eyes. Not that anybody else would notice but it makes Mats feel grateful that he’s stuck in this with his best bro.

“Okay, Mats.” Mats says slowly, rubbing across Marco’s name on his forearm.

“My name’s not-“ Marco starts correcting him, before catching on and softly saying, “Oh. Shit. This is going to be hard.”

Mats laughs and Marco scratches his head through the beanie, he’s still wearing.

“What’s with the hat?”

Marco pulls it off to show the black, messy hair underneath. “Honest answer? I couldn’t tame your curls.”

Mats nearly falls off his chair laughing and is only saved by his new, lower center of gravity. “Oh my god, Marco, I can’t let you walk around like this. I’ve got a reputation to uphold!”

Marco sticks out his tongue. “Don’t worry, I can walk around looking bisexually frustrated and like I want the next best hunk to jump me. You, however, will have trouble replicating my graceful football techniques in training tomorrow!”

“Haha, so funny, like you’re one to talk,” Mats laughs mockingly before it hits him like Sergio Ramos out to get a red card. “Shit. _Football.”_

Marco seems to understand what he means and his smile fades a little, as he runs his fingers through the mess of his hair. “Damn. I had trouble brushing my teeth in your tree log of a body. Playing will be a challenge.”

But Marco doesn’t get it, not really. Mats isn’t worried about training tomorrow or about the BVB matches, he could survive not taking part in them (don’t tell Kloppo) but there are nationals soon and Mats would literally kill a man to make sure he’ll be called up.

Not so much for the matches but.

For Benni.

“I can’t miss the matches with the national team!” Mats says emphatically, a little louder than necessary.

Marco coughs to hide his laughter. “Any, uh, particular reason?”

Mats tries to glare him into submission but he keeps staring like it’s a challenge and Mats can't bear to see such a serene look on his own face.

“Yeah. Well. It’s Benni, okay. Okay?” Mats admits, “we rarely ever see each other except with the national team.”

Marco sighs and picks at the label of the beer bottle in front of him. “You should really do something about Benni. It’s awkward how you keep tip-toeing around each other. If I was you-“

Marco interrupts himself and looks down at himself, then at his reflection in the shiny surface of the fridge. An alarmingly wide grin spreads across his face.

“ _If I was you.”_ he repeats and devilishly rubs his hands together. “You know what? We’re going to train, we’re going to go to the international matches, we’re going to meet Benni and _then_ we’re going to find out how to swap back.”

Mats isn’t half as excited about it as Marco. “In that order?”

“In that order." Marco nods.

Mats wants to dig a hole somewhere in a far-off desert and never see light again, even if that meant he’d never meet Benni again and never got to ask Marco whether he’d be entirely against making out with himself. For science.


	2. Chapter 2

Mats and Marco send texts to every single person that was with them during the celebrations but none of them can remember anything weird that might have happened.  
Then again, their minds might not immediately jump to ‘who made Marco and Mats swap bodies’, after getting a message like ‘do u remember anyth about last night? 2 hung-over 2 remember lol’.

Erik offers ‘Kevin told us the story of how he got an autograph from Helene Fischer fifteen times but other than that, no.’ but that’s not particularly helpful.

Searching for _body swap_ on the Internet isn’t of any success either.

Marco pulls up list after list of movies that feature body swaps but they’re both doubtful that they’re going to _Freaky Friday_ their way of this. It’s not like they hate each other and need to learn a lesson about selfishness. They also didn’t stop by any Chinese restaurant so that theory is going nowhere.

One scientific article talks about dramatic consequences to any possible body change but both Mats and Marco are feeling okay so far, only a little fazed by their new limbs. And if Mats keeps touching his tattoo, then that’s nobody’s business.  
Scientists always exaggerating things, tsk.

Mats types ‘help i swapped bodies’ into the Google search bar for fun and it actually comes up as a suggestion.

“This seems to be a more common problem than I’d have thought.” Marco laughs as they scroll through pages of illiterate comments of body switch claims.

Thirty minutes of research later, Mats and Marco find themselves among mountains of paper slips where they jotted down any information they could get about last evening – anything that might be connected to magic spells.  
There’s also a pentagram in flour on the table as well as a few candles because they tried a reverse ritual they found on the Internet.  
It didn’t work and Mats can already feel a bruise forming on his lower back but let’s not get into that. He’s exhausted and annoyed and while this body swap is sort of fun, it also sort of sucks majorly.

“So that was time well spent. _Not._ We’re not a single step closer to find out what happened and how to reverse it.” he says and throws his hands up in resignation.

Marco doesn’t seem alarmed at all while he draws circles into the flour on the table with his fingers. “Lucky for you, I’m the brains of this mission and I’ve got another idea.”

“Which would be?”

Marco gets up from his chair and stretches, flicking back his curls. “Nothing you need to worry your pretty little head about. I mean, _my_ pretty lit- damn, the thing that sucks most about this swap, is that half of my digs don’t work anymore.”

It’s frustrating because Mats _knows_ Marco is engineering some scheme he _definitely_ won’t like but he also can’t do anything against it and it’s hard to be angry at, basically, himself.

Marco leans down to type something on the computer and Mats can see that it’s on an e-mail account but as soon as he slides closer to take a peek, Marco snaps the laptop shut like a teenager caught looking at porn.

“Let’s hope this works, because other than that I’m at my wit’s end and we might be stuck in each other’s bodies for forever. So keep your fingers crossed.” Marco says and holds up his own crossed fingers.

Mats opens his mouth to ask what Marco’s idea is compromised of and hopes it includes 100% less prostitutes in ref outfits than his last birthday but Marco continues, “I’m going to order some pizza now and after that we’re going to play some FIFA because no way in hell am I going to let this freaky curse ruin my free day.”

That boy should check his priorities, Mats thinks, but he has no idea what else they could be doing apart from getting a spot on a subpar documentary about Out-Of-Body-Experiences.

“It’s barely past twelve.” Mats remarks but now that he thinks about it, he does crave a good old proper cheesy pizza right about now.

His expectations are let down though, when the pizza arrives, he bites into it and – almost spits it into the lap of Marco who is sitting next to him on the couch, controller in hand.

“What the hell?” they say unisono and Mats swallows the pizza with a grossed out expression on his face.

“That tastes like shit,” Mats explains, “I told you to order pineapple-ham.”

“That is pineapple-ham. I’ve got salami for me.”

“So why does it taste like dusty dog food? Why does my favourite pizza taste like dusty freaking dog food?”

Marco squints and rubs his chin. “You know, maybe it’s because _I_ hate pineapple. It probably has to do with taste buds and shit. I mean, you have my mouth now.”

Mats groans and throws the pizza box back onto the coffee table. With an exaggerated sigh, he flings himself across the couch over Marco’s lap. “I can’t even eat my favourite pizza anymore until this is over. Wow.” Merry fucking Christmas.

Marco just laughs and Mats can’t believe Marco is having _fun_ with this. Well, okay, he totally received a free body upgrade due to this so maybe if Mats was in Marco’s place, he’d be grateful for the switch.

Hm, Mats _is_ in Marco’s place, sort of, and he indeed _would_ be happy to switch so this proves how... it proves how Mats is the loser in this situation anyhow.

They spend the rest of the day like they would spend any day that’s not filled with potential witch curses. Mats wins a couple of matches on FIFA (he tries to play with the game version Marco to maybe practice before training tomorrow) and after that they just stay on the couch and let the tv run as background noise.

Mats is more interested in watching Marco take selfies (“Wow, this is a whole new epiphany.” Marco says as he arranges his curls and turns his head to accentuate his jaw and Mats is a little flattered.) than watching the screen so he perks up like a puppy when he hears the words “world champion Benedikt Höwedes” from the screen.

It’s a commercial for some horrible evening show that Mats hasn’t watched in years but he’s man enough to admit that he’s so far gone that he considers recording it, just to see Benni.

And that dick never even told him that he scored a spot on public television! Whatever, so it was a show that even his grandmother hated by now but still, that’s something you share with friends, right?

Mats lazily fumbles his phone out of his pocket and dials Benni’s number.  
He’s lost track of time, for all he knows, it could be 12 am or 7 pm and Mats doesn’t even want to know what that says about Marco’s biological clock.

But Benni answers the phone quickly and in that awfully nice way of his so it’s probably not too late for an ordinary call between friends.

“Hey Mats, what’s up? I tried to call you yesterday to congratulate you guys on the victory but I guess you were already out celebrating.” Benni says and Mats can nearly hear him smile.

“Uh yeah, pretty wild night! Thanks though! Schalke can keep dreaming, huh?”

There’s a pause on the other end of the line and Mats almost thinks the Schalke comment was too much although they say stuff like that to each other all the fucking time.

“Wait, is that you, Marco?” Benni asks finally, not mad but confused, “Why are you using Mats’ phone?”

Oh God. Mats totally forgot about the tiny, negligible fact that he has Marco’s voice at the moment. He chokes on his own spit, panics and wildly gestures at Marco to take the phone.

Marco does take it, with his eyebrows raised, but mouths “What?” and doesn’t say anything.

Mats waves his hands around to explain but that doesn’t quite work so he grabs a pen and hurriedly scrawls _'benni thinks i’m you'_ on the pizza box.

Marco rolls his eyes and pushes the phone back into Mats’ hands. He writes ‘ _so pretend you’re me’_ below Mats’ sentence, before hesitating and then adding something that looks a lot like _‘chicken’._

Right. Mats can do that. He raises the phone to his ear again to hear Benni calling out, “You still there? I can’t hear you. Can you hear me?”

“Sorry, I had to, uh, I had to – get my coffee.” Mats finishes lamely and tries to ignore Marco’s expectant expression.

“This is you, Marco, right? I mean, I can recognize your voice?”

“Yeah, it’s, uh, me. I guess I grabbed Mats’ phone on accident. He must have left it at my place yesterday. Mats is probably at the gym by now, working out.”

Benni laughs and Mats thinks he’s doing quite alright with this whole act even though Marco rolls his eyes and leaves the room when Mats praises his own sportiness in third person.

“Actually I called because I saw that commercial on tv,” Mats continues, “you know, that old people show where they just talk, talk, talk and then they bet they can run a tractor over a bridge or something. You’ve never told me you have an appearance there!”

“Yeah, that’s _Wetten Dass_ for you. I’m not particularly proud of it but it’s business, right? I heard Megan Fox will be there, too, so let’s see how that works out,” Benni chuckles.

It’s irrational for Mats to be jealous but he blames it on Marco’s crazy brain chemistry. Mindlessly, he tugs at strands of his badly dyed blonde hair.

“You do know I’ll totally watch it and then make fun of you for it when we share a room for the internationals?”

“Uh,” Benni starts awkwardly, the way he always does when he doesn’t want to insult somebody, “I’m kind of sharing with Mats already? I mean, we always do. I figured you wanted to room with Mario.”

Mats wants to hit his head against the wall for slipping up again. _I’m Marco_ , he repeats to himself, _I’m Marco.  
_ On second thought, though, he can’t help feeling happy because Benni turned down somebody else’s offer – or at least the offer of someone who he thought was someone else – so he could have Mats as a roommate.

Mats collects himself and says, “Right, yeah, of course. I meant I’ll probably annoy you about it when we meet next week. And I'll get Mats to do the same.”

“Hey, I’ve got to go now but have fun watching me embarrass myself on national tv. Oooh, and can you tell Mats I’m looking forward to meeting him against Ireland?”

There’s definitely _no_ flutter in Mats’ chest when Benni says that and he replies, “Will do. Bye.” in an _extremely_ manly way.

When he throws the phone onto the coffee table with a sigh, relieved Benni didn't suspect anything, Mats spots Marco standing in the door frame.  
“When’s that show on?” Marco asks thoughtfully but Mats can see right through that facade into the lair of an evil scheming villain.

“The day after tomorrow, right after our match.”

Marco nods slowly, then he flashes a smile at Mats. “Cool. Maybe I’ll watch it, too.”

The commercial comes on three more times during the day and the afternoon is over sooner than Mats realises.

Without really talking about it, they agree that Mats should probably live with Marco for the time until the internationals start to avoid awkward conflicts so Mats gets a blanket to sleep on the couch.

After a day, walking past mirrors doesn’t make Mats freak out anymore which is a huge success but looking at Marco in his own body keeps being a little odd.

All in all, Mats is still on square one, left with the sneaking suspicion that Marco knows more about this problem than he lets on, that sucker.  
He’s looking forward to meeting up with Benni although it will be probably be as uncomfortable as possible; he’s _not_ looking forward to accidentally breaking Marco’s short baby legs in training tomorrow but prays to god that they’ll both manage okay. Okay-ish.

Mats mind almost slips to his favourite fantasies (number one is still the shower scene) in the darkness of Marco’s living room but even he is not quite perverted enough to knock one out in his best friend’s body.  
_Not yet_ , he tries not to think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to write more for this chapter but I figured you probably want a new chapter as soon as possible and it was a quite good place to cut, so here you go!
> 
>  _Wetten Dass_ is a horribly boring German show that used to be slightly less boring. Benni actually was a guest on the show on Saturday and I sort of spontaneously decided to include it because of a certain person (she knows who she is).


	3. Chapter 3

When Mats opens his eyes the following morning, woken up by Marco trashing around in the kitchen, he has the unfounded hope that maybe it all had been a bad dream and that he’s back in his own body.  
But that’s before he turns around on the couch and tries to grab his phone from the table and against his unconscious calculations, it’s just out of reach.  
Mats groans, heaves himself two inches closer, curses at least twenty deities and squints at the screen.

The clock shows 7 am, unfortunately, but Mats also finds a message from Benni. He almost smiles when he opens it but the text only says ‘ _marco called me from your phone and was all flirty – too much alcohol yesterday? haha’_

Mats can’t believe just how _wrong_ Benni got it and sends back ‘ _probs. c u on tv 2mrrw ;)_ ’

He toys with the idea of sleeping a little longer but Marco shouts, “I made coffee” from the kitchen and that’s definitely a pretty strong argument right there so Mats rolls off the couch and finds his way through the flat.

Marco hands him a cup but Mats almost spits the coffee across the table before they remember to switch cups.  
It’s a mystery to Mats why anybody would put as much sugar in their coffee as Marco usually does and it’s even more of a mystery when he genuinely likes the sweet taste.

Marco checks something on the computer _again_ but only makes an unsatisfied noise.

“What’s wrong?” Mats asks and is unsuccessful in trying to get a look at what Marco is working on.

Marco hesitates for a second, before crinkling his nose. “I’ll tell you soon enough.”

“So it does have to do with this?” Mats gestures at his body but it’s probably not hard to guess what he means when he says ‘this’.

“I... guess. I can’t tell.” is the only mysterious answer he receives and he doesn’t get another word out of Marco for the rest of the breakfast.

When they’re done eating, Marco shoos him out of the house, into the car and Mats braces himself for training by listening to a rap CD that he finds in the glove box.

Training is... uh, well. If Mats had do write a testimonial for today’s practice he’d say that there certainly had been an effort of some sort. Probably.

Marco handles it pretty gracefully for the most part, Mats had to grudgingly admit that much, but he himself misses dozens of passes because the others all call him _Marco_ and his brain is always a little too late to change the channel.

Halfway through their practice match, Marco hits his head on the goalpost when he tries to score a header and Mats can’t help thinking that it serves him right for, like, a tiny moment.

Of course, the others notice that something’s up.  
Kevin, with the usual tact of a bulldozer, takes Mats aside and asks him whether he took any drugs.

“What the hell?” Mats answers, pissed off, “If I talked to you about drugs every time you play badly, I might as well open a drug-counselling service.”

Kevin wordlessly slinks away after that but Mats can see Kloppo talk to Marco on the other side of the pitch which doesn’t look like good news either.  
Klopp shrugs in that grandpa kind of way while pointing at the upper arm where the captain’s armband is supposed to be and Mats watches Marco in his body nod and nod and nod.

“Don’t even ask,” Marco stops any questions with the wave of his hand when they’re in the showers, “We just talked about the match tomorrow, whatever. To be honest, I’m not too confident about it.”

Mats isn’t either because he’s been playing football for ages already but he’s only tried in Marco’s body in FIFA and for the small amount of time today so it’s bound to backfire.

And, yeah, maybe it’s the body swap, maybe the stars aren’t in the right position, maybe it’s both, but either way, they play really lousily the next day and lose the game 0:1.

Kloppo doesn’t say anything about it, just claps a couple of them on the back and wishes some of them luck for the international matches. Mats could kiss him for not turning it into a lecture like Jogi would have done.

Mats feels bad because they lost the game and he feels even worse because right now, that fact seems insignificant in the grand scheme of things that is body magic, Benni and the National Team. In that order.

Mats turns to Marco to discuss whether there’s any chance that they won’t ruin the match against Ireland like they ruined this one but Marco is already fully dressed while Mats has barely taken off his shoes.

He didn’t even shower yet and Mats really doesn’t want to have _that_ reputation in the team. But Marco doesn’t care, just grabs his bag and is out of the locker room before Roman is even done putting gel in his hair.

“What’s wrong with Mats?” Marcel asks and Neven shrugs and guesses something about disappointment, loss and self-discovery which is better than any answer Mats could have thought of.

Following Marco’s example, Mats gets a move on, too, and ignores the reporters trying to interview him about the match. He’s really not in the mood for that right now and it only gets worse when he enters Marco’s house and sees Marco calmly sitting on the couch, tv turned on, _Mats’_ handy in his hands.

“What the hell? You stole my phone!” Mats says and angrily dumps his sports bag on the floor.

But Marco doesn’t stop typing on the phone, just indifferently says, “Oh, did I? I didn’t notice.”

“You’re _literally_ using it right now! Give me my fucking phone, asshole!”

When Mats tries to grab it, Marco has the audacity to take advantage of his taller body and holds the device just of Mats' reach so Mats boxes him against the shoulder and starts pouting.

Marco laughs and sends one other message before handing the phone back to Mats.

“Calm down, I was just helping you, believe me.” Marco says with a sly grin on his face, settles back onto the couch and changes the tv channel.

But no, Mats doesn’t believe it because when he inspects his phone for any porn apps that Marco might have downloaded, he finds a) a selfie uploaded to his twitter account and b) a complete fucking conversation with Benni in his message archive, dated from twenty minutes to thirty seconds ago.

“Marco. _Marco, I hate you._ Stop meddling in my goddamn business! Don’t you ever fucking take my phone again.”  
Mats is seriously annoyed about and he can’t even tell where that anger is coming from, all he knows is that he’s had it up to here with Marco continuously ruining his life through crazy plans. Never mind that a good portion of them does succeed one weird, winded way or another.

“I’m just trying to help you,” Marco says again. “I’m a pro with this kind of stuff. Your little soap opera with Benni is just not endurable anymore. So this body change is probably a sign from the gods for me to finally cut through centuries of sexual tension and help you, uh...”  
Marco repeatedly slaps his left palm against his right fist in a motion that probably not even a childish 8th grader would use to imply sex.

Mats groans, pushes his hands into his pants pockets and rocks forward and back on the balls of his feet.  
“Okay,” Mats starts, a little reluctant but Marco doesn’t even take his eyes off the tv which makes it easier, “I know you want to get us together but it’s not like I haven’t tried to – to introduce the concept to him.”

“You told him you’re into him? How so?”

“Urgh, no, I didn’t explicitly tell him. Brokeback Mountain was on tv and I-“ Mats says but Marco interrupts him with deafening laughter.

“Brokeback freaking Mountain?!”

“The opportunity was there, okay? It was on and we talked about it and I asked whether he thought anybody of us might be gay or queer or whatever. And he was so weird about it and he began to stutter, I just never brought up again. It’s just not happening.”

Mats sighs and on tv, the intro for _Wetten dass_ and ergo Benni’s appearance starts playing. Mats looks at the screen but so far they’re just showing the audience clapping.

Marco turns down the sound and looks at Mats expectantly but it’s not like there’s much left to tell.

“I don’t know,” Mats continues, “it took me weeks to be this comfortable with him again. I know how close I can be to him without accidentally... coming on to him because I can’t restrain myself. I can deal with him coming out of the shower, I can deal with seeing him change clothes, I can deal with him talking about sex or whatever. It’s just pretty clear this is never going anywhere other than friends, you know. And please, please don’t ruin this for me.”

There’s a quiet but stubborn voice in the back of Mats’ head that’s wondering what could be so bad about Marco trying to fix this but Mats ignores it as well as he can.

A look of guilt flashes across Marco’s face but then it’s replaced by a calculating gaze and Mats knows he still will never hear the end of the match-making plans.

“And please tell me, you figured out how to swap back. Don’t even try to tell me you don’t know more about this than you let on.”

“Chill out, Mats,” Marco answers, raising his hands in an appeasing gesture, “yes, okay, I know something more about this but I’m not keeping it from you for fun. It’s, like, not my thing to tell. Probably. It’s crazy. But I will be able to tell you when we meet the team, I promise.”

“Whatever.” Mats huffs.

He has realised that asking Marco about his super secret source of information on accidental body swaps is fruitless so he sits down on the couch next to Marco and turns towards the tv.

The show is as boring as Mats remembers it and after an hour they’re both groaning at _everything_ the host says or does.  
Benni, however.

Benni looks awfully good in his casual suit and Mats’ stomach turns whenever he smiles and it feels like a wound has been ripped open again, now that he’s told Marco what it’s like.

At some point, late on the evening, Benni gets a kiss from one of the guests and that’s even worse than him sitting next to Megan Fox and smiling with the force of ten thousand light bulbs.  
Mats can feel Marco watching him during the scene with the kiss but Mats bites his lip and doesn’t wince.

At the end of the show, confetti rains down and some pieces get stuck in Benni’s hair. It’s more distracting than it should be and somehow it sticks in Mats' mind even after Marco turns off the tv and leaves Mats on the couch to sleep.

Mats’ phone buzzes and shit, right, Mats still hadn’t read the messages that Marco sent to Benni in his name.

The first text was sent only five minutes after Marco had left the locker room and maybe this step of the plan had been the actual reason why Marco had been in such a hurry to get out after the match.

 _to Bene:_ how’s tv business?

 _from Bene:_ exhausting haha i’d call you but i’m in make-up rn

 _to Bene:_ i bet you you’re not going to win your bet on the show

 _from Bene:_ don’t be so cheeky

 _from Bene:_ ...

 _from Bene:_ just heard you lost, sorry about that

 _to Bene:_ thanks uh i just hope we win the international

 _from Bene:_ you know us, we’ll rock that thing

 _from Bene:_ i gotta go now – camera tests...

 _to Bene:_ i’m looking forward to seeing you, there’s a lot i need to tell you

Mats pulls a face when he reads the message. Marco couldn’t seriously be planning to tell Benni about his crush but then again, _it’s Marco_.

The last text, the one Benni sent just a minute ago, probably right after the show was over, sound fishy and Mats reads it three times to make sure he didn’t miss anything.

 _from Bene:_ i need to tell you something too

Mats waits for ten minutes but there’s no new message to explain what Benni might have meant. He thinks about texting something back but he doesn’t know what except ‘ _i hope you want to tell me you’re in love with me’_ and in the end, he falls asleep with the phone still in his hand.

\--

Mats and Marco drive to the team hotel the next day and just thinking about the international makes Mats feel alive.

And when Mats sees Benni at the check-in of the hotel, he feels like the past couple of month have just been leading up to this – so basically like he always does when meeting Benni again after spending time apart.

“Yo, Benni!”, he shouts across the room and waves happily.

Benni turns around and instantly walks over to them, grinning widely. Mats already opens his arms for a hug but Benni just playfully boxes his shoulder and says, “Hey, Marco!” before turning to Marco and sweeping him up in a hug.

Marco shoots a self-satisfied glance at Mats over Benni’s shoulder and Mats never wanted to curse this body swap more than now, when Benni gives all his love to Marco, just because he’s the good-looking one with the curls now.

Marco’s body sucks, Mats decides and walks over to Mario, pouting, because what Marco can do, he can do better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting there, friends, we're getting there. I'm sorry that there's so many antecedents before we get to the good stuff.


	4. Chapter 4

As expected, Marco rooms with Benni and Mats has to share with Mario which is slightly awkward because Mario keeps on happily babbling about stuff Mats never even wanted to know.

For example, it takes Mario half an hour to recap one single day at the gym in meticulous detail and all Mats can think about is how Marco endures that shit every single international (and probably via texts during the rest of the time).

Benni is a lot more easy-going as a roommate but maybe that’s just Mats’ impression because he’s in love. Or whatever.

At their second team breakfast, Marco sits so close to Benni that there’s barely room for Jesus between them and a couple of times Marco “accidentally” drinks from Benni’s glass.

Mats tries to make their table catch fire by staring at it from across the room because, hey, maybe this body swap is just the first sign and magic exists and he just never got his acceptance letter for Hogwarts. Wizard might be a more fulfilling career than footballer.

“Are you okay?” Mario asks and makes Mats focus his attention on him instead of on the truly gruesome PDA that Marco is exhibiting.

“Huh?” Mats replies intelligently and spoons up the already soggy flakes in the milk in front of him.

“You keep looking over to the table over there. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m... Isn’t it weird how Marc- Mats is almost sitting in Benni’s lap?”

Mario takes a bite out of his sandwich and thinks for moment.  
“No?” he says then, “Not really? They’re always like that. Come on, we talked about that last time. Are you really still on your match-making plan?”

Mats just makes a non-committal noise and suppresses the growing urge to walk over to Benni and pry him away from Marco’s ear and anyway, Mario was totally wrong about that – Benni and himself aren’t ‘always like that’ because if they were, Mats would remember Benni breathing into his hair and pulling away giggling _for sure_.

The cornflakes taste like wet cardboard and Mats knows he probably looks like an axe murderer while he shovels them into his mouth.

Benni has started talking to Lukas now who is sitting at the other side of their table but Marco and he still haven’t moved away from each other.  
In fact, Marco casually drops his arm on the back of Benni’s chair and consequently around Benni’s shoulders before he turns and meets Mats’ eyes, challenging.

Mats distorts his face into a fake syrupy smile but he has trouble keeping it up when Marco moves his hand onto Benni’s neck, still looking directly at Mats.

Mats glances around but no one seems to notice the weird exchange happening across two tables, not even Benni who has Marco’s sweaty paw almost down his collar.  
Mats pushes his chair back with a start, its legs squeaking across the floor, and throws a glare into Marco’s direction that hopefully convincingly says ‘one step further and I’ll use my World Cup bonus to hire an assassin’.

His exit is less grand than he planned it to be, due to him stumbling over his legs when he storms off and Mario immediately following him with a concerned expression on his face.

Mats turns around in the corridor and Mario can’t stop quickly enough so he walks into him.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Mario asks while immediately fixing his hair. It’s a quirk that Mats never even noticed before he turned into Marco but now he sees Mario doing it all the time – when he’s nervous, when he’s bored, when he’s eating, when he’s playing football. When his hair is a mess.

Mats is facing Mario and it’s not like he has to look _up_ because Mario is still a tiny person but Mats is not quite as tall anymore in Marco’s body so it’s almost just as degrading as having to look up to him.

“I’m fine.” Mats says, rolling his eyes. “Just a bit strung up.”

Mario gives him a once-over and doesn’t really seem to believe it but he shrugs anyway. Then he suddenly whips out his phone, holds it up and presses against Mats’ side.  
Mats’ body – no, _Marco’s_ body sort of reacts in ways Mats doesn’t want to think about and he tenses and stutters, “Uh?”

“Selfie?” Mario supplies with a weird look like Mats is supposed to know that.

“Oh, right.”

So Mats smiles, pulls Mario closer and the photo even comes out looking cute-ish despite Marco’s ugly mug.

When Mario is distracted by posting the picture on twitter, Mats sneaks away into his room and drops face-first onto his bed. Sure, they’ve got a training session today but it doesn’t start until one in the afternoon so there’s plenty of time to wallow in self-pity, Mats figures.

He almost slips back into sleep after lying on the comfortable bed for fifteen minutes when someone knocks on the door and Mats reluctantly gets up to let Mario in.

It’s not Mario, though, it’s Benni who sheepishly shifts from one foot to the other.

“What?” Mats snaps but totally not because he’s jealous and angry at Marco. Nah.

Benni looks down the corridor as if he’s asking himself whether whatever he wants is worth the hassle but in the end he seems to decide for it.

“Marco? Can I ask you something?” Benni asks, biting his lip.

Mats sighs but for a moment his thoughts skip to the text Benni sent him _. I need to tell you something too._ “Whatever. Go for it.”

If Benni is taken aback by the rudeness, it doesn’t show through the awkward blush on his cheeks. He takes a deep breath before he actually states his question. Or tries to state it.

“Is Mats –“ he starts, hesitates, looks around, starts again, “I mean, do you... do you think, uh, Mats might be – you’re his best friend, right, and I figures if anybody knows then it’s you and... I might be completely wrong about this, in that case we can just erase this from our memories forever but – I wanted to know, uh.”

Just ask the fucking question, Mats thinks as Benni struggles for words that sound like the shit clueless politicians say in interviews.

“Just say whether you agree or disagree with this, okay? Don’t laugh. _Please._ Alright. I think Mats is -“

Benni never gets to finish that sentence because Marco comes running down the corridor and jumps at Benni who tries to get a hold of him but only ends up holding Marco awkwardly at his hip. He’s smiling but it’s a nuance strained, so little that no one but Mats would probably ever have noticed.

“You gossiping about me?” Marco asks and happily ignores the uncomfortable atmosphere brought on by his interruption. “Never mind that, I need to talk to you, Marco. You know what it’s about.”

Of course Mats knows because what else would they be talking about other than the swap but Marco always has the worst possible timing and it hurts Mats to see Benni standing there, lips drawn into a thin line.

“We were sort of in the middle of something.” Mats replies but Marco just waggles his eyebrows.

“Oh, I _bet_ you were in the middle of _something_.”

Mats wants to tell Marco off but Benni just looks at Marco with a, ah, besotted expression and mumbles, “It’s alright. It wasn’t important. I’ll just... leave.” And so he does.

As soon as Benni’s gone, Marco rubs his hands together and grins. “Seems like my plan is working out just fine.”

If Mats hadn’t known Marco for years already (and if he wasn’t stuck in Mats’ body), he’d probably have punched out his front teeth right now.

“Fuck off. Fuck off forever. Right into the sun like fucking Icarus for all I care.”

Marco just laughs and ruffles Mats’ hair like he didn’t just almost bang Benni on the breakfast table. Okay, hyperbole but _still._

“Forget about Benni for a second,” Marco says and immediately throws up his hands when he notices Mats’ incredulous look, “I know, I know, that’s _me_ saying you should forget him but honestly, what I’ve got is more important right now: I’ll tell you what I know about this body swap. Or well, we’ll ask someone who knows better than I do.”

 _Finally_ , Mats thinks and prays (to whoever Manuel prays to for his goalie skills) for this all to be done, done, done.

“And who would that be?” Mats asks, desperately hoping it’s someone competent.

His wish is granted, sort of, and Mats makes a mental note to ask for Benni’s hand in marriage from that same god next time if it works that well.

“Philipp.” Marco answers, “Lahm.”

\--

“First of all, why are you even still here?” Mats wants to know because this is an international match and Philipp is sitting in front of him in one of the cold leather chairs in the hotel lobby and Marco acts like this is still the most normal situation in his life, which it probably is if you look at it among the horrendous parties he’s thrown.

Philipp doesn’t answer, just looks at Mats, then over to the hotel bar where Toni is trying to build a house of cards on Sami’s back and Jerome has Christoph in a headlock, looks back at Mats, raises one eyebrow. Point taken.

Meanwhile Marco props his feet up on the expensive-looking glass table and waves his hand to get the attention back on the task. Right, Mats thinks, _now_ he wants to hurry after Marco left him hanging about this for days.

“So we swapped bodies,” Marco explains to Philipp like he’s talking about the weather, “and since you’re the most qualified person I know, I e-mailed you about this freaky shit. And now I hope you have the solution for it.”

Philipp nods earnestly. He fiddles with his bag and pulls a huge book out of it that’s got weird symbols drawn on the cover. It reminds Mats of his grandmother’s bible and he silently hopes that no one has to get exorcised or ecclesially executed.

“Mats, Marco,” Philipp says to them before realising his mistake and repeating it, this time matching the names to the actual person instead of the body. “You’re going to think I’m crazy either way so I’ll just get right to it: This book lists all the... inexplicable happenings in our team, the national team.”

Huh?

Philipp draws his fingers through his hair as he realises that Mats doesn’t quite get the point. “Magic. I’m talking about magic.”

“Hang on, hang on. Magic. What. _What?_ ”  
Mats is close to laughing and patting Philipp’s thigh for the successful joke but Philipp doesn’t even blink and generally looks like a very serious sales rep. Not like he’s pulling Mats’ leg.

“Are you for real?” Mats asks slowly and looks at Marco who just shrugs helplessly.

Philipp nods and hands over the book and if it was anybody else, Mats might not have believed them but it’s _Fips_ , for god’s sake.

Mats opens the book and the first two pages are filled with notes in what he recognises at Philipp’s handwriting. It doesn’t look threatening or satanic though, so he’s a little disappointed when he just reads a couple of words like _curse, transformation, fertility ritual._  
Leafing through the book, he notices that the rest of the pages are completely empty.

“So not a lot of, uh, magic things have happened so far, have they?”

“It’s the second volume already.” Philipp deadpans.

Mats looks at Marco but he is more invested in drawing pattern into the couch’s cloth so Mats guesses that Marco’s already been introduced to the whole idea of The Football Book of Spells.

Mats opens his mouth but Philipp doesn’t let him speak.

“Don’t try to ask me anything, please,” Philipp says, exasperated, “I barely know more about this than you do. It’s like, you know, you become captain and no one ever tells you about it beforehand. They just give you the captain’s armband and this book and you’re supposed to figure it out for yourself. I think other national teams have books like this one, too, but who knows. That Casillas guy never managed to give me a straight answer when I asked him.”

Mats digs his fingers into the couch cushion next to him because this sounds too ridiculous to be true but fuck all, it makes sense, if anything relating to the body swap can make sense.

“So... how do we swap back?”

“Honest answer? No idea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's half past midnight and I miss Philipp Lahm.  
> Hope you like the new chapter!


	5. Chapter 5

Great. So they are where they started and if even Philipp can’t help them, maybe it’s completely hopeless after all.

Mats hands back the book and shakes his head in disappointment.  
“Okay, so... thanks for nothing, I guess. No hard feelings, I’m just really not looking forward to spending the rest of my life like this, while we lose all our matches and Marco gets to screw my friends.”

Philipp seems a little confused about last part but he doesn’t comment on it. He looks around and hesitantly replies, “Don’t give up yet. There might be a way to fix this. Might be, okay. But either way, from what I gathered from my research, curses or spells usually aren’t forever. Three years max probably and you’ll automatically switch back even if we don’t find the cause.”

“Three years?!” Mats says scandalised, at the same time as Marco asks, “Curses? Spells?”

Philipp leans back in his chair and taps his fingers on the armrests, out of impatience probably.  
“Three years at most. But that’s just if we don’t find a solution at some point,” he says, “And as you know me, _not_ finding solutions is really not my kind of thing. Unless you annoyed your local witch into cursing you, I’m guessing it’s a spell. These things don’t happen randomly so from what I’ve learned from previous... cases, it’d probably be very useful if you could remember in detail what happened the day before you switched.”

“Previous cases? Someone else on this team has swapped bodies before?” Marco pipes up quite loudly and Mats anxiously looks at the others at the bar but they don’t seem interested in the slightest, not even in Philipp still being here.

Philipp, for his part, waves Marco’s words off.  
“No body swaps but other things. Invisibility, mind reading, uh, marriages but I can’t talk about it. It’s restricted information. As I said, I don’t know much about it anyway although I’ve tried to read up on it,” Philipp says and ducks his head. “I guess, these things happen when you believe in them. And in football, a lot of people believe in the same things. They make wishes on the same things and sometimes the combined power lights a spark and. Magic happens.”

There’s a solemn silence for a moment before Mats ruins it, like he does most things.

“That’s really fucking cheesy. I love it.”

Both Philipp and Marco groan but Mats knows Marco had totally been thinking the exact same thing so he’s just being hypocritical.

Marco recounts what they can piece together about the won match and the night out before they woke up in each other’s bodies, while Philipp nods along.

“Aha,” Philipp says meaningfully after Marco is done (with plenty interruptions from Mats because the guy can’t tell a story right) and scratches his chin.

“So you know what happened?”

“No.”

Mats huffs and slides down against the back of the couch into the cushions

However, Philipp isn’t done yet.  
“But it might have been any moment during the match where the people wanted you to swap, like... you could have scored a header but only Marco was there? Or... well, I’m out of ideas but any moment where the fans might have wanted you to switch could have been enough. Magic sucks, it happens at the least pleasant of times.”

“Oh, _really_? Does it now?” Mats mumbles and pulls a face. His eyes drift to the angular clock above the reception and he’s irritated to see that there’s not much time left until their training is supposed to start. He’s really not in the mood to cringe through more work-outs in Marco’s body right now and doesn’t particularly want Jogi to figure out something is wrong.

Marco follows Mats’ gaze at the clock, takes his feet off the table and straightens his back when he reads the time.

“We’d love to chat with you some more about magic and wizards and how you applied for Mary Poppins’ job,” Marco says which Philipp counters with an emotionless face, “but all we really need right now is a hint on how to get rid of our problem.”

Marco lowers his voice on the word ‘hint’ as if he’s trying to imply something and Mats fears the worst.

“There’s a measure that usually resolves any spell,” Philipp explains, holding up his index finger, “Fairy tales all work out the same way, you know?”

Mats doesn’t remember a lot of fairy tales and he’d hate to think of his life as one but he’s familiar with the Disney movies Sleeping Beauty, Snow-White and The Princess and The Frog (talk about team-building exercises).  
Vaguely replaying them in his head, they do all end the same way and Philipp confirms it when he earnestly says, “A kiss.”

Mats is surprised. No, that’s not quite true - he’s surprised that he _isn’t_ surprised.

It’s like he’s already watched his life go down the drain and all he can do now is stand there and sadly wave goodbye. While Marco cackles manically, probably.  
He’s sort of made his peace with it.

“A kiss,” Marco indeed repeats gleefully and jabs Mats in the ribs with his elbow. “True love’s kiss.”

The jabbing intensifies until Mats is sure he’s getting bruises.

“Yeah, I got it! It’s okay!” Mats calls and shoves Marco away. That guy doesn’t have to be so upfront about being a fucking asshole who gets a hard-on for seeing his two friends together.

So Mats is going to have to make out with Benni. Considering it, it’s not the worst thing that could have happened, in fact it’s almost the best one and Mats actually has an excuse to do it, even if it’s m-a-g-i-c.

Philipp watches Mats and Marco with an amused, yet tired expression on his face.  
“I need to leave soon so should probably get it over with right now, in case I need to be there for damage control.”

He says it with a sweet tone but Mats has to swallow when he hears the words ‘damage control’.  
He thought that what they were doing _right now_ was damage control.  
And he’s sure as hell not going to drag Benni over here right now to smooch him in front of his ex-captain-and-almost-nanny.

“I’m sorry, uh, but,” Mats stutters, “I don’t think we can organise that right now. In front of you.”

Philipp frowns for a moment, like he actually thinks it’s weird that Mats is not going to kiss Benni in the middle of the hotel lobby, but then he just shrugs.  
“Okay. Call me if something goes wrong. No, scratch that, call me if something goes _horribly_ wrong. Oh, and when magic stuff like this happens again, don’t come running to me. I’ll deliver the magic book to Basti as soon as I can and then you’re going to have to cry on his shoulder.”

Getting up from his chair, Philipp grabs his bag, waves goodbye and he’s gone so quickly that it’s strangely like he had never been there.

“When,” Marco says, contextless.

“What?”

“He said ‘ _when_ magic stuff happens’. Not _‘if’_.”

Wow. Marco really is great with setting priorities.  
Mats pinches the bridge of his nose and heaves himself up from the couch.

“Come on. Instead of focusing on linguistics, we should probably get to training and figure out how I can, uh, kiss Benni without making an extreme fool of myself.” Mats says and grabs Marco’s arm to help him up as well.

The others have already left the lobby and the hands of the clock move further so Mats and Marco hurry to get their equipment for training.  
They can’t really talk about their plans in the locker room without anyone listening in so they pair up for warm-ups, much to Benni’s dismay who still seems to be itching to ask Mats – or Marco, actually – about whatever he wanted to know after breakfast this morning.

“We could probably just tell Benni,” Marco notes which is an idea as stupid as they come so Mats tackles him onto the ground as punishment.  
They roll around on the grass for about a minute before Miro turns on his killjoy mode and reminds them to be a good role models for the kids.

Mats and Marco soon give up on trying to coordinate the _Kiss Benni Mission_ after Marco falls over five times due to trouble of keeping his limbs in order. Mats also _gracefully_ scores an own goal with a misguided header during the training match and he’s quite happy that Marco will be blamed for that one later on, not himself.

Jogi frowns pretty much the whole time but Mats can’t tell whether it’s because the guy always frowns like the supermarket was out of Papaya smoothie when he wanted to buy some - or whether it’s a special type of _‘I can feel the magic’_ frown.

Marco reassures him that it’s probably the first one.  
“You’re just getting paranoid”, he tells Mats when they leave the sports area, “and anyway, if we just get Benni and you somewhere secluded all of this will be over and we’re back to the good old days of being us.”

“Except for the fact that I will have kissed Benni.” Mats demurs and tries not to let it show that he’s feeling a little... shaky, for lack of better words to describe the abysmal panic rising in him.

Marco groans. “ _Yeah_ , except for the fact that you and Benni will be happy together forever because I’m not the kind of guy who sticks his hand down another guy’s shirt at breakfast without his plan actually succeeding. Benni’s into you, I swear to god. My radar for that kind of stuff is excellent.”

They walk back to Mats’ and Mario’s room while talking, deciding that it’s secluded enough since Mario will probably spend his time eating forenoon snacks with Andre.

Mats dumps his sports bag on the chair in the middle of the room and himself onto the bed while Marco paces the floor in front of him.

“It’s easy, really,” Marco explains. “He wanted to talk to you about something anyway before I interrupted you, so you use that as an excuse to call him here. You smooch him, we switch bodies, you confess your undying love, we win a couple of other football trophies, happily ever after.”

It does sound quite appealing the way Marco narrates it and all Mats wants to hope is that it will indeed be that easy but he’s not really sold on the whole part that goes ‘Benni loves you, too.’ but either way, he’s going to do anything to get his body back.

Mats lets his head drop back into the cushion and stares at the ceiling. “Two things though: Firstly, I’m still you, Marco, so Benni will think you kissed him which might just make things awkward.”

Marco waves it off like it’s no big deal. “I’ll gratefully play the bad home wrecker if that’s what it’s about. It’s not going to confuse Benni, take my word for it.”

Mats is definitely hesitant about taking Marco’s word for anything except the Champions League results but he knows there’s no use in arguing so he just nods and continues, "The second thing is, why do I need to kiss someone and you don’t?”

Marco stops dead in his tracks and squints at Mats.  
“You’re asking a very good question.” he says slowly, then he pulls out his phone. “I’ll ask Fips.”

Mats can’t see what he types but Marco reads it out aloud.

_to fipsy: do we both need to do the kissing?_

_from fipsy: Yes. How else???????????_

That’s a shit-ton of question marks, especially for someone like Philipp, but it makes sense for both Marco and Mats to be involved in this to break the curse. The Spell. Whatever.

“So who are you going to kiss?” Mats asks, “Not Benni, too, I hope?”

Marco laughs and drags Mats up from the bed to stand up straight in front of him. He gives Mats an approving once-over and tugs his hair into place.  
Mats feels like he’s standing in front of a screwed-up mirror and has to stop himself from reaching out because it’s somehow still hard to believe that the swap is all _real._

“Oh no, babe, you’re trying to distract from what’s actually important right now. Call Benni to get here and the rest will solve itself.”

Mats hesitates for just a second but apparently that’s already one second too long and Marco looks at him reproachfully.

“Call him,” he says sternly. “I’ll get a fucking _Carpe Diem_ tramp stamp across your ass if you don’t suck it up and call him.”

Marco raises his hand in a mock salute and is out of the door but Mats would bet his right hand on Marco still waiting outside somewhere, hiding behind a potted plant. But, yeah, Mats texts Benni (on Marco’s phone) that they can talk now, without interruptions and that he should come to Marco’s room pretty please?  
Benni types for at least one minute but then only sends back ‘ _ok_ ’ which is not like Benni at all.

Mats look at himself in the mirror but _Marco_ stares back from the glass surface and while scratching the tattoo on his arm, Mats feels pretty bad about lying to Benni. Looking back at his life, he really can’t remember fucking anything up so tremendously that he’d deserve this mess of a situation but he also didn’t know magic existed until, like, four hours ago.

There’s a knock on the door and Mats nearly throws himself out of the window in surprise before he takes a deep breath and opens to face a disheveled Benni.

“I don’t think I need to talk about anything anymore,” Benni starts right away, stumbling over the words, not giving Mats any chance to comment on the weird stuff he’s blabbering,“It was a stupid question and something I need to figure out myself before I panic and involve you, too. I guess I was embarrassed and confused this morning, all that touching. I have my hopes but it would be a shit move to ask _you_ behind his back whether he’s into me and - _Shit._ _Fuck._ I shouldn’t have said that.”

Benni freezes and stares at Mats for a moment, eyes wide, mouth in the shape of an ‘O’, before wincing and slapping his hand across his mouth.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles through his fingers, “Forget I ever said that. And please never tell Mats, _I beg you_.”

Benni turns around to hurry away but finally the little gears in Mats’ head start turning again and he trips to the door to close it before Benni can escape.

Mats isn’t thinking about the body swap anymore, not about Marco, not about Philipp, not about magic, not about football, not about global fucking warming, except for the fact that it’s starting to feel really warm in the room.

Mats is barely thinking _anything_ when he corners Benni against the closed door, only _‘Benni’_ and _‘into me’_ and _Benni, Benni, Benni, Benni._

He has to look up to meet Benni’s unsure eyes and somehow that’s so hot that a shiver runs down Mats’ back. They’re close now, really close and Mats gives up on holding back, when this is what he’s planned to do anyway.

Their lips slot together like it’s meant to be and Mats closes his eyes, just concentrates on the touch and taste of paradise.  
Some sort of spark ignites in his chest and if he’s ever felt magic, well, then it’s in this exact moment.

Mats pulls away because he can’t hold his breath any longer and when he opens his eyes, he still has to look up.

‘Up’ being the most important part of the situation, of course, but the second most important is probably that the tattoo is still there, the short body, the spiky hair as well and an uncontrolled wrath at Philipp’s fruitless plan. Mats stares at himself in the mirror and it’s still Marco staring back, angrily.

“Marco?” Benni breathes helplessly, holding one hand defensively in front of him, wiping his mouth with the back of the other hand. He’s positively shaking and that’s when Mats knows that he’s fucked up big time.

He doesn’t even have a chance to prevent Benni from dashing out of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have the worst sore throat right now (it even hurts to swallow, how fun) but I sucked it up and used my test-free time to write.  
> Special shout-out to Gi whose birthday it is today and who will definitely get her fic at some point.
> 
> There's probably one more chapter coming up? I guess?


	6. Chapter 6

Mats hates failing. In football just like in private life and right now, he’s failing Benni _and_ himself but he knows he has to get his priorities in the right order and fix this step by step, as fast as he can. Starting with Marco and their body swap.

So Mats takes a deep breath, licks his lips to get rid of the distracting taste and walks through the door that Benni slammed shut just a couple of seconds ago.

He tries to stop the thoughts from racing through his head but his only hope is that Marco just hasn’t completed his part of the kissing deal yet – it’s the only logical explanation why this hasn’t worked out. If you can apply logic to magic, that is.

Mats runs down the corridor with no particular idea of where to search for Marco – and directly into Jogi when he turns around the first corner.

“Marco! I was just looking for you!” Jogi says while he fixes his now crumpled suit, straining his dialect. “You had some trouble during training so I wanted to-“

Definitely _not_ the right moment for that, Mats thinks and interrupts him hastily, “I know, I know! We can talk about this later, I swear, but I’m in a hurry right now! See you!”

Mats puts on a cheerful smile and gives two thumbs-up for reasons that he himself wouldn’t be able to recall later, before he leaves Jogi standing speechlessly in the hall.

The elevator is fucking slow, the elevator music is fucking annoying and Mats feels like the numbers are counting the seconds of his life.

In the hotel lobby, he finds neither Benni nor Marco, only a bored looking Sami.

“Do you know where Marco is?” Mats asks but Sami just looks at him like he’s grown a second head.

It takes Mats a moment to realise where the mistake is and he repeats his question. “I mean, do you know where Mats is?”

Sami shrugs.  
“Yeah, he came through with Mario five minutes ago or something. It’s like a station hall in here. Benni ran towards the gym like three seconds later.”

Mats is torn now, between checking Marco’s room and searching for Benni but eventually decides on the first thing because he figures confronting Benni in his current appearance wouldn’t be particularly helpful.

“Thanks!” Mats says and Sami shrugs again, smiling.

Mats runs to Marco’s and Benni’s room on the ground floor, knocks on the door and opens it without waiting for an answer.  
He almost regrets that for a second because of whatever he might walked in on but he only faces Marco and Mario, two appropriate arm’s lengths between them.

“Did you kiss him already?” Mats asks out of breath, because honestly, he’s stopped giving a shit whether Mario knows about this or not.

Marco stares at Mats, looking a little peeved. “I was just about to, _thanks_. Where’s Benni?”

Mats is itching to get this over with so he doesn’t answer, just grits his teeth and grunts, “Kiss him.”

Mario, the poor guy, is looking back and forth between Marco and Mats like a frightened chipmunk.  
Marco has pity on him, takes a step forward and slowly raises his hand to lie on Mario’s shoulder, before swiftly dragging him forward by his shirt and kissing him.

At first, Mats is mesmerized by the sight of his own tongue in Mario’s mouth but the initial surprise soon wears off and then it just looks icky and ridiculous, especially due to the fifteen centimetres height difference.

Mats awkwardly clears his throat after half a minute and Marco and Mario break apart with a wet sound that will probably haunt Mats into old age.

“Wow.” Marco says and looks down on himself as if it wasn’t painfully obvious that they still haven’t swapped back.

“Well.” Mats says soberly, impatiently tapping his foot on the floor. “It didn’t fucking work. We’re stuck forever. Thanks a lot, you asshole.”

Marco glares at him and starts pacing the floor.  
“Okay, I didn’t realise that apparently _I_ asked for this to happen while _you_ are completely innocent.”

“It fit into your match-making plans horribly well, though, didn’t it? Messing with Benni and me and slobbering all over him during breakfast! You thought it was funny!” Mats snaps although he knows that it’s probably not the smartest thing to do right now.

“Just because I can adapt to shitty circumstances, it’s my fault now? That’s what you think? I don’t even care. Think what you want!”

“Oh, I will!”

They’re both shouting now, angrily gesturing at each other.

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

“ _Fine_!”

“Uh.” Mario says.

“Shut up!” Marco and Mats yell unisono which is just another reason for them to keep glaring at each other.

“Would you care to explain what’s going on?” Mario asks cautiously while fixing his hair. He doesn’t seem too concerned with the fact that he just French-kissed Mats Hummels without any apparent reason.

Mats and Marco exchange glances, then Mats groans and lets himself slumps against the wall. “When you’re older, Mario, when you’re older.”

Mario open his mouth to object but Marco stops him.  
“Just accept it,” he says, “I’ll tell you later. Right now, we need somebody else’s help.”

Marco holds his hand out to Mats and after a couple of beats, Mats realises that he wants his phone.

Marco texts Philipp about their failure and he almost immediately texts back. Mats can envision his annoyed face miles away better than the back of his hand.

_from fipsy: How on Earth did you manage to screw it up?_

_to fipsy: no idea. we did as you said. true love’s kiss & everyth_

_from fipsy: The ‘true love’ part is a figure of speech._

_to fipsy: what_

_from fispy: What?_

_to fipsy: i feel like we’re talking about different things_

_from fipsy: Did you or did you not kiss Mats?_

_to fipsy: wait_

_to fipsy: we’re supposed to kiss eaCH OTHER?_

_from fipsy: That was the plan. What did you do?_

Mats is following the exchange over Marco’s shoulder and facepalms when he reads Philipp’s last answer. Somehow _that_ makes a lot more sense than what they’ve been trying to do but then again Mats only ever focused on kissing Benni because Marco put him onto that track.

“What?” Marco says when he sees Mats’ reproachful glares. “How was I supposed to know? Stop blaming me for everything! Don’t hate the player, hate the game!”

“Oh, I’m hating it, don’t worry!” Mats replies, grabs Marco by his wrists and crashes their lips together.

The kiss is weird, to say the least.  
At first, it’s because Mats is kissing his best friend but also basically himself, then because a tingly warmth spreads from his lips through his chest down to his toes.  
The feeling is pretty much indescribable but it’s like Mats senses the universe’s vibrations resonate in his each and every bone and he has to close his eyes to be able to deal with the overstimulation.

For a moment so short he might have imagined it, he is part of two bodies and then, when he opens his eyes again, he sees the room from the other side and looks at Marco – not himself, but Marco in _Marco’s_ body.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Mats says, overwhelmed and, most of all, as relieved as he’s never been in his life before. He squints at the black strands of hair he can make out above his eyes, clenches his fists and opens them again. It feels so good to be back that Mats is instantly ready to score a header, or fifty.

The adrenalin in his body (his own fucking body, hell yeah) is running high and that’s what Mats will use as an excuse later on when he first pecks Marco on the lips again and then lays one on Mario as well.

Marco doesn’t let any kind of surprise show, just smirks as if he had planned this all along. “True love saves the day, dude,” he says cheerfully, “so go get Benni!”  
Mats doesn’t need to be told twice.

As he leaves the room and runs down the corridor, he can still hear muffled sounds of Marco talking to Mario , enlightening him about the body swap probably.

Back in the hotel lobby, Sami, who is now playing cards with Mesut and Toni, groans.  
“Bustle like a freaking station hall,” he mumbles, before asking, “Did Marco find you? He wanted to know where you are?”

Mats nods and looks around searchingly, trying to figure out how to get to Benni.

“Entrance to the gym,” Sami replies without ever being asked the actual question and Mats blows him a kiss before walking into direction that he pointed out.

Mats doesn’t see Benni anywhere at first, especially since the light is pretty low in the hall to the work-out rooms but just before Mats reaches the massive steel doors that lead outside, he literally trips over him.

Benni is sitting on the floor, back against the wall and knees drawn up to his chest, and he’s listening to music on his MP3 player.

When Mats stumbles over his legs and almost kicks Benni in the face, Benni pulls the headphones from his ears.

“Hey,” Benni says but there’s so much that Mats wants to tell him, wants to explain that he doesn’t have the patience to repeat the greeting.

Instead, he grabs Benni’s arm and drags him up from the floor so they’re standing in front of each other in the dim hallway.

Benni’s eyes look confused and a little tired but he manages to honestly smile back when Mats crookedly grins at him.

“This is going to sound crazy,” Mats says and takes a deep breath to calm his by now pounding heart, “and I really don’t know how to explain this but I know you’re sitting here all emo because Marco just kissed you and more importantly, it wasn’t actually Marco, it was me. Because I thought I needed to but I also because I wanted to. Kiss you, that is.”

Benni knits his brow and looks at Mats as if he just suggested a threesome with Oliver Kahn.  
“It wasn’t Marco? You think I can’t tell you apart? What the hell are you talking about?” Benni asks and hits the light switch that turns on the blinding neon lamps above them.

Mats has to shield his eyes. This was going to be difficult and Mats has no idea why he ever thought it might be an easy ride.  
He already has the words ‘body swap’ on his tongue when he spontaneously changes his plans. He’s always been more of a doer than a talker and Benni had always appreciated that about him so why not try it now?

“Forget what I said for a second,” Mats says and leans forward in one smooth motion to kiss the confusion right off of Benni’s face.

Benni freezes at first and is like a lifeless statue under Mats’ hands so Mats hastily backtracks and breaks away, heart beating a hundred miles an hour. If there’s an organ for regret, it’s probably beating even faster.

They stare at each other and an illegible sequence of emotions washes across Benni’s face while Mats tries to not to concentrate on how his Adam’s apple moves when he swallows.

Finally, it all goes way too fast.  
Benni grabs Mats by his shirt and somehow flings them both around so they end up with Mats pressed against the cold wall and Benni in front of him, his hands on either side of Mats’ head.

Mats has forgotten any prayers that he might have known at some point but it doesn’t matter much anyway, because Benni closes the gap between them before Mats ever gets past ‘ _dear lord’_ in his head.

The kiss is gentle and soft and it feels like this what their lives have lead up – the glorious summit on the mountain of love after they’ve waded through the bogs of sexual tension and the forest of awkwardness for too many years to count.

In the end, the warmth he felt when the spell was broken doesn’t even compare to the joy that spreads through his body now.

Mats has to dig his fingernails into Benni’s shoulder because his legs start to give in and he makes some embarrassingly needy noise when Benni breaks the kiss.

“Wanted this so bad,” Benni breathes into Mats’ neck while his hands roam across Mats’ chest.

Mats has to dig through the haze in his head first before he can answer, “I know. _Fuck_ , I know.”

And the rest doesn’t have to be said.

Benni kisses the skin below the jaw once, twice, three times, then he takes a step back and Mats suddenly feels cold without the contact. Benni just smirks and Mats wishes he could remember how to hate him because that’s just asshole behaviour.

“So I didn’t imagine your ridiculous PDA at breakfast this morning?” Benni asks and Mats winces.

“Uh, no. But also yes. It’s... complicated?”

Benni rolls his eyes.  
“Will you tell me if I kiss you again?”

Mats knows that this is how Benni is going to control him from now on but he’s a weak man so he says yes. Benni kisses him again and it might just have been the best decision ever made by any person throughout all of history.

“Promise me you won’t interrupt me until I’m done with the whole story.” Mats demands and Benni gives his word.

It’s hard to make the whole thing sound like a sensible narrative about things that really happened and not like some story that a conspiracist on drugs would tell – but Mats thinks he manages alright and even shows Benni all the text messages on his phone as proof.

After twenty minutes, Benni only says, “Okay.”

Mats eyes widen and he’s almost offended at this audacity.

“ _Okay_? Just like that? You believe me?”

“Well, you’ve told be stories more idiotic than this one,” Benni shrugs and adds, “and I know for a fact that Thomas was able to talk to animals for three days in South Africa because of the same weird shit so yeah. I believe you.”

“You knew about magic? I could have just talked to you and not have endured Marco with all this horrible stuff?”

“Whatever. You have to admit Marco was kind of right about all of this.” Benni says and “accidentally” lets his hand brush against Mats’ crotch, as he leans in to whisper into his ear, “Let’s not talk about Marco anymore right now.”

\--

On 11th November, Philipp receives a package bound with a big red bow. Neither Claudia nor himself can explain who dropped it in front of their door step but he figures it’s a birthday present so he opens it and finds a huge, empty book inside.

Well, _almost_ empty because there’s an unsigned dedication written on the first page.

_Happy Birthday and thank you for your help. We owe you a lot. You can use this book as volume three. We think you’ll need it. M &B_

So much for retirement, Philipp thinks and groans inwardly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looking back at the notes I made for this story before I began writing is pretty hilarious. (They were all supposed to go on a holiday together and 'book club? glasses?' were legitimate keywords in there.)
> 
> I really don't know what else to say, except: yay, here you go!


End file.
